"Ressurrection from the Dead" has come to mean over many centuries, that a dead person will be re-created, full grown, from some remnants of his former body, perhaps just a few bones and sinews, with a complete consciousness and some memories of his former lifetime.

He or she will be able to recognize and associate with his or her former family and friends, who will have a facial and bodily appearance similar to that they had before.

It is allowed that defects may be corrected, but no one asserts black races will be recreated white, or white black.

There is certainty that resurrected people will still have a totally human body, will eat food, sleep, and perhaps still make love to each other. [Depending somewhat on importance of this in a culture. Muslim terrorists [promised 72 virgins] find this rather important]

This list is important for a comparison with REINCARNATION.

Historically, due to the availability once more of the Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonian cuneiform tablets and picture seals, and the more recent Egyptian papyrus and rock-carved heiroglyphs, we can be assured that a belief in the Resurrection of the Dead was first defined by their priests.

However, only rulers, priests, and very important people were assured of a Resurrection, and only if they passed a Divine Judgement of their characters and actions, coupled with the power and money required to be embalmed, and build a massive and very secure tomb such as the pyramids.

Such a secure tomb was required so that the mummified bodies of these pharaohs and other important people could be preserved intact from the inevitable efforts of robbers to steal the jewels and ornate furniture buried with these candidates for resurrection.

Our first cause for distrust in the certainty of a resurrection of the dead, is that many or most of these mummies have been found intact. Some of them have been x-rayed. Others have had autopsies performed that allow modern doctors to discover what diseases the now mummified rulers had, and what killed them.

But most important, the event that these people expected to occur never happened - and no Divine Entity called them back to life or "recreated" a living, breathing, thinking person using these mummified remains as a beginning!

Along came Akhenaten around 1300 BC, and refined a belief in One God, which he named ATN, variously spelled Aton or Aten [there were no vowels in ancient Egyptian heiroglyphs, and the more modern Aramaic, Hebrew, and Arabic languages. .....This heretic pharaoh shut down the temples of more than 300 Egyptian dieties, and was later forced to abdicate, and hide in the Wilderness of Sinai for about 30 years........ At a wilderness temple I have visited named Sarabit al Khadim.

Ahmed Osman of Egypt has convincingly shown, and this web site supports, that Akhenaten was the Moses of the Old Testament.mmmm And that he was the real author of the first three of the Ten Commandments. ...The condensed form of his monotheistic beliefs, to which he added the Seventh-day Sabbath from a much older Sumerian Theology, and seven other commandments borrowed from the Egyptian "Book of the Dead".

After 30 years' exile, Akhenaten/Moses returned to Egypt and led his extended family and monotheistic followers into the "Land of Midian" [now Saudia Arabia]...... Later descendents of this group moved to Jordan, and from Jordan "invaded" Canaan to become the nation of Israel under Saul and David.

A mostly non-monotheistic group which may have been part of Moses' original migration may have instead gone across Saudia Arabia to Pakistan, Kashmir, and India, where they merged their beliefs and traditions about Adam, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, and Moses with equally old vedic traditions of that area.

My friend and co-author Suzanna Olsson is a defender of this well-liked Eastern Religions theory.. Largely supported also by Muslims and Buddhists.

Akhenaten/Moses' promotion of the One God Theology was successful. Partly because during the Age of Aries there was indeed one god [Ra/Marduk] who had successfully userped the authority in the Middle East from the 12 Elohim Gods.

Ra/Marduk was successful after fighting for control for thousands of years using, at least part of the time, the Great Pyramid as his base. ...Thousands of human beings in armies led by the various gods were killed, but what turned the tide in Ra/Marduk's favor was a mistake made by the other gods at Sodom and Gomorrah and other "cities of the plain". ........Which they destroyed using aircraft and atomic or nuclear bombs......... Radioactive fallout blew over the Sumerian Cities of the Gods [E.DIN], making them uninhabitable for centuries. .....Babylon escaped the fallout and became the base of Marduk.

Hebrew scribes used Ra/Marduk's "jealous" and war-loving character as the basis for their invention of the god Yahweh. .......Yahweh loved only Hebrews, however, and led the Hebrews [through commands relayed by Hebrew priests, scribes, and prophets] in periodic Jihads [Holy Wars] against those local tribes in Canaan that the Hebrews felt it necessary to exterminate or enslave..

The One God Theology promoted by Moses coupled with the "God-persona" of Ra/Marduk made this ethically permissible, first for the Jews, and later for the Islamic Arabs.

The Greeks, although they preserved the memory of the 12 Elohim Gods, and invented many other local gods, demi-gods, and Sons and daughters of the Gods, saw Zeus as the Father-God, the One with final authority.

Zeus could decide to resurrect people from the dead if he so desired, but reserved this special favor mostly for his own half-god half-human children.

It was thought at that time that ordinary mediocre humans who had spent their lives in slavery, or as free men struggling for survival would not know what to do with eternal or everlasting life even if given it as a free gift.

However, the belief in One, All-powerful God greatly increases the believability of the idea that a Resurrection of the Dead is possible and practical...... And the ingredients were fully in place for the Essenes and Jesus Christ to fully develope that belief to it's present prominent place.

In recent years [since 1986] I have been studying the Resurrection of the Dead and a belief in The Second Coming of Jesus with more intensity as an apparent deadline for these events approached. .......After the publication of Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls [Dr. Barbara Thiering PhD - 1992] it was increasingly apparent that this deadline was the Spring of 1994 if we use Jesus' real birthdate [March 7 BC], or Sept. 1996 if we use Ussher's Chronology. ....But one can rely on general expectations to put off "Judgement Day" to December 31, 1999 [Y2K scare]. .....Or even December 31, 2000. The 2000th anniversary of the year of James the Brother of Jesus' birth.

The "Gospel Pesher" promoted by Dr. Barbara Thiering confirms that the Essenes of Qumran invented a 7000 year prophetic scheme and schedule based on Bible texts showing God created the world in seven literal days, but prophetically made each of these days 1000 years [The "Millenial Week Prophecy"].

Coupled with a Day of Judgement belief possibly begun by the unknown original author of the non-canonical Book of Enoch, those Essenes who were also Pharisees made the Resurrection of the Dead scriptural. .........The Essenes inserted a lot of new text into the scriptures as they were copying these scriptures for various synagogues and the Jerusalem temple........ By comparing the ages of the pre-flood patriarchs when they had their first male heirs in Genesis, using KJV, Septuigent, and Samaritan Bibles, it can be shown what the Essene Copyists accomplished to promote their prophecy scheme.

The Essenes were great students and researchers, and incorperated Zoroaster's teachings from Persia into a traditional Hebrew theology they inherited from their forefathers........... This allowed them to see Two Divine Beings not just One as the cause of "Good and Evil" here on earth..... There is a continuous struggle or war going on between these two entities, and all human beings are pawns in this giant "Chess Game". .....The Essenes saw themselves as the Sons of Light preparing themselves to fight the Sons of Darkness in a final great battle to decide the fate of mankind.

Jesus Christ as Yeshua ben Miriam became the Royal Messiah of the Essenes in the Fall of 29 AD and was maintained in that position until the Spring of 33 AD, at which time he was crucified at Qumran in a latrine area of the Qumran monastery........ A vastly exhaggerated film presentation of this crucifixion was recently shown in theatres around the world titled The Passion of the Christ.

In a new slant on theology at least partly approved by the Essenes, Jesus Christ "paid the price" for the sins of all those who believe this to be true and are baptized as Christians.

Yahweh/Allah, although never inclined to do such things before, has had a change of heart, now that His Unique or Only-begotten Son has been crucified by the Romans with the consent of Jewish leaders........ He will now accept converted Jews, Greeks, and Romans, and us, their spiritual descendents, into a new Kingdom of God that will be set up at Jesus' Second Coming.

Many, perhaps even the majority, of those in this Kingdom of God will be Resurrected from the Dead when Jesus appears riding on a cloud in the sky.

The second major cause for mistrust that any of this will ever happen, at least in the manner promoted by those preaching it for 2000 years is the final dates, now clearly determined by our current knowledge of "Gospel Pesher" and Essene methods of Chronology, have passed. .......Anywhere from 4 years ago to 10 years ago!

However, the most convincing reason for now completely distrusting any belief in a literal Resurrection of the Dead is that it has never happened, even once, in the entire documented history of mankind! ....The one suggested exception to this universally accepted fact are certain resurrections described in the Old Testament and in the Gospels and Acts of the New Testament.

The Old Testament resurrections envolved the Prophet Elisha, who reportedly revived a sun-stroke victim by a procedure resembling modern CPR or mouth-to-mouth resusication. .....After Elisha's death and burial an apparently dead soldier was thrown into his tomb, and came out of the grave or tomb alive.mm It is entirely possible a rest in a cool cave, coupled with excitement, caused this apparent resurrection.

All of the resurrections in the New Testament, including that of Jesus himself, can now be shown to be symbolic resurrections, using the system of double- talk Thiering calls "Gospel Pesher".

Jairus' daughter is really Mary Magdalene, resurrected to life because she became pregnant with a child after 12 years of apparently being barren. Lazarus was raised from death [excommunication] after spending 4 days in a cave at Qumran as punishment for a zealot riot which later resulted in the crucifiction of three of the Qumran leaders. [Made famous as the Crucifixion of Jesus.] ...And the supposed resurrection or resuscitation of Eutychus, who fell out of a window in Acts while listening to an all-night sermon by Paul, can be shown to be his reinstatement in Orthodox Christian belief after a long absence.

Most important, however, is the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the pattern or precedent that was supposed to foreshadow and make believable all the resurrections people have thought would occur on various dates starting with October 22, 1844 [Millerites - Seventh-day Adventists]. Progressing to 1914 [Jehovah's Witnesses]. September 11-13, 1988 [Rapture '88 Movement], March 1994 [real 2000 years], Sept. 1996 [Ussher's], Dec. 1999 [Y2K], etc.

Careful reading by many of John's Gospel account of Jesus' apparent "death" on the cross allowed them to see he was still alive when placed in his tomb.

Hugh Schonfield in his best-selling The Passover Plot, was one of the first to create a general stir on this subject. //In the 1970s Donovan Joyce's The Jesus Scroll described Jesus as still alive and present at Masada in 70-72 AD. ...But it was not until publication of Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1992 that all the details of the crucifixion could be known with reasonable certainty.

Divine beings have shown their tendency to delude large groups of humans in the past, for the purpose of influencing our behavior in the direction of less war and violence, and more love for our neighbors. ....Promises of Eternal Life have had profoundly good results, as well as threats of an ever-burning Hell to those not meeting certain standards. ..However, in the early 20th century, as more pessimism concerning an actual Ressurection of the Dead was manifest, Edgar Cayce and others "resurrected" a belief in an alternative doctrine. ...That of REINCARNATION.